Captain on the bridge!
Slightly smoky dot.
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++++++++++++ DAWN OF FLAME - BOOK 1 - FIRE STARTERS +++++++++++++
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The Sun looms ever larger in your Starship's primary viewscreen. At this distance, the massive sphere of plasma that dominates the screen seems to seethe with flares of light and fire. Its surface is already far too bright for direct viewing - your viewscreen delivers the image through numerous shades and dimming filters. Its an impressive, powerful sight, even for those of you who know the Sun and the Burning Archipelago quite well.
Your ship rattles, pops and whirrs. The heat management subsystems struggle to modulate a comfortable atmosphere inside as you rapidly approach your destination. Those of you who've done a few runs with it are already used to its eccentricities, and its many failings, including the dreadful slowness with which it adapts to Near-Sun conditions. With much of the internals of the ship taken up by cargo bays, the ship's bridge doubles as its only common room. Right now, with all five of you there, its positively sweltering.
A small display on a side-screen denotes that 12 hours remain until you arrive at the entrance to the Burning Archipelago. 12 hours until some of you disembark and others are paid for their services and their cargo delivered safely. 12 hours for something to go wrong...
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On the bridge-turned-sauna, a woman stared at a screen, trying to decrease the temperature reading through sheer force of will. The machine refused, presumably out of spite. I knew I should have given life support a bit of love, she thought. But no, you wanted to show off by tuning up the navigation systems. Even after the Captain warned you the ship's atmospherics were slow to adjust during the approach to the Sun, you figured out a way to make the approach faster, which just put the system under even more stress. Great job, Mari.
To most people, Marisol Welkin could easily be mistaken for an unusually pale human (with hair to match), though saying as much to her was a sure way to earn an intense glare. Humans, after all, lived on rocks, and she had grown up in the clouds of a gas giant, as was natural and proper. Once suitably educated, even cursory examination of her features would reveal her sylph ancestry. Beyond the coloration of her skin and hair, there were the intricate blue markings that wound around the right side of her face and neck, disappeared under her collar, and resurfaced on her left hand. A particularly perceptive observer might notice that her long, loose hair always seemed to be shifting with an invisible breeze, even in the climate controlled confines of a starship.
Mari brushed sweat-plastered hair out of her face, sighed, and gave up trying to intimidate the computer. Instead she focused her attention on the others she found herself sharing the bridge with. Her grey eyes hopped from one to the next as she mentally recited the nicknames she'd assigned to all of them in the days since they departed Absalom. Cap. Bel. Sammy. And...Ordyt. She frowned. Nicknames were a hobby of hers, and normally came quite easily, but the oread stubbornly resisted diminution. She'd have to keep working on it. Glancing over at the navigation display, she grimaced.
"12 hours to arrival, Cap!"
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Captain Flint Conners strides across the bridge, his loose brown shirt hanging open as he moves to look over Marisol’s shoulder at the Nav screen. His grey eyes reflect the light of the Burning Mother, the corners turning up a bit as he smiles at the familiar sight.
”Right on course, Mari,” he comments, glancing over at his captain’s chair with his trademark black leather duster draped over it in deference to the heat. ”I appreciate your efforts to keep our fiery ambassador comfortable, but knock it down a few degrees if you can,” he adds with a disarming smile.
Turning to Belmarniss, he adds, ”Ms. Rycast, I just checked on your cargo. It is secure, although a dozen degrees above standard temperature. These long haul starships are not as well adapted to near sun conditions as our typical local transport. I presume that is not an issue?” he concludes.
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Sammad heard Marisol's words and perked up slightly, now curious. "12 hours...I believe that makes us ahead of schedule." he stated. "Wonderful work, Marisol and Flint."
Sammad chuckled to himself at Captain Flint's joke. He was indeed the only one comfortable in the sweltering bridge, as both a native of the Archipelago and a being of flesh entwined with flame. And he wore that fire boldly, deep orange skin set off by his incandescent yellow eyes and his charcoal lips. His scalp was covered in scales of the same dark color, but they were concealed under his fashionable red-and-black turban. His Al-Fayir Cooperative uniform was largely black as well, with accents of red and white, and twin brooches that sat on either side of his chest proclaiming his allegiance.
12 hours was plenty of time to plan his next actions when the ship set down. First, we'll move my cargo to the Cooperative's headquarters and I'll report it to Quassela...then I'll go report to the Institute...and then I'll go take a proper sunbath. I'm starting to go pale, stuck in this starship...
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Standing before the main viewscreen as the the sun grows slowly, almost imperceptibly large stands a large broad-shouldered figure gazing steadily at the image through the narrow black visor-screen of their helm. Thick ceramic armor plates devoid of any sigil or official markings cover their form, and a black metallic tactical pike is collapsed together and slung over their shoulder.
Lady of Light help me, I don't have any idea what to do next.
At Marisol's announcement the figure turns their head towards the sound, striding towards Captain Flint. Removing the helm reveals a smooth hairless head that looks like a square-jawed human whose skin looks like green marble. Ordyt's sapphire-like multifaceted eyes gaze steadily at the other man.
"I apologize for the interruption, Captain. Once we arrive at the Archipelago, will you still be requiring my assistance?" If the oread has preference, his impassive expression gives no sign, though the barest note of apprehension tinges his voice.
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Flint will wait for an acknowledgement of some kind from Belmarniss to his question, then turn to the hulking figure who just asked him a question. Those paying attention may notice that the captain seems to puff up a bit and stand a bit taller responding to the armored hulk—not in a threatening way, but in the way of one warrior showing respect to another.
”I am unaware of any job openings on my sunskimmer, the Flame Dancer, but I doubt you’d want to crew on a local transport like her anyway—she should be cleared to return to service very soon,” Flint says gently, ”but I’d be happy to vouch for you with the Radiant Cathedral once we have settled our cargo, if you want to see what they have available.”
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"Aye, Cap, I'll see what I can do." Glaring at the computer once again, Mari set about trying to find and solve whatever inefficiency or defect in the system was responsible for this unbearable heat.
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Belmarniss Rycast, seated near Sammad, takes a sip from a cup of tepid coffee, the ice-cubes she'd thrown into it already nearly gone thanks to the bridge's warmth. It tasted terrible, but caffeine was caffeine, and she was glad for anything that could take the edge off the heat for even a little bit.
Even when sitting, she seems statuesque and imposing. Having what appeared to be twice the muscle mass of an average drow did that, coupled with a form-fitting, bone-white flight-suit. Displayed on the front were a pair of swords, one emblazoned with a sunburst at its hilt, the other wrapped in a pair of fiery, orange wings. The emblems of her goddess and her order, worn proudly for all to see. Her gaunt, blank-faced helmet lies on the floor next to her, leaving her face and all its scars on display. The most prominent is the brand surrounding her left eye, another sunburst, this one twisting in a spiral, with a crescent inside that wraps around her eye. The emblem of her past and her power. Other scars mar her otherwise exquisite, deep blue-violet visage, speaking of fire, steel and exhaust. Her hair, as white as her armor, hangs to one side from the top of her head, revealing the shaved sides.
"KNIGHT-LIEUTENANT Rycast, Captain Conners," she says, correcting him. "And it's not an issue. The tech these things were developed survived the bloody Gap, I imagine a little heat won't make a difference. Still, thank you for your attentiveness. House Rycast appreciates it, and so do I."
Marisol tries to coax the half-rate computer into rebalancing power between its various environmental systems and in the process finds that the heat management subsystem is already maxed out. Not taking 'no' for an answer, she manually adjust's the ship's artificial gravity power allotment - this close to the sun it's struggling against the star's pull. You all feel a tug forward toward the nose of the ship, and see some loose objects rolling up deck towards the nose as well. However, the small discomfort of the mixed gravity is accompanied by a cool(ish) breeze from the AC vents.
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Marisol adjusts the ship's approach vector - pulling into a wide and unstable circuit around the sun. Dawnshore, and the Burning Archipelago, lie yet ahead about 10 more hours at an efficient cruising speed. Flint takes a look at the viewscreen and spots a "landmark" of sorts, one that he knows very well from his many expeditions on the Flame Dancer.
A small spoke-and-wheel-type space station sits with its long point facing the surface of the sun. Crowning that point is a dizzying array of antennae, dishes, probes, and other more exotic instruments - all of which are listening to the sun. Far Portal Station; a utilitarian scientific outpost sitting on its lonesome at the edge of the sun.
Or... almost on its lonesome. Just beyond the Station lies a vast golden ring, its diameter almost as large as the Station itself. Within the ring swirls a blue mist, standing out starkly against orange-yellows of the ring and the sun behind it. The Far Portal...
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The human male ego is an intriguing enigma. So vast, yet so fragile. Easily deflated, yet readily stroked. Chagrined at the correction, yet emboldened by the praise, an interesting mix of emotions war beneath the surface.
Aloud, he merely replies, "You are most welcome, Knight-Lieutenant Rycast."
A permanent portal to another plane, big enough to fly a starship through...I wonder if there's one that connects to the Plane of Air? Marisol had never met a djinn, but she had always been curious about the place her ancestors had come from.
Sammad's gaze was fixed on the portal that appeared on the viewscreen. The Al-Fayir Cooperative had no ties to it, and little knowledge of the mysterious traders that emerged from it periodically. They were content in this, seeing no competition in their wares, but Sammad had always been fascinated by the stories. Alas, he had never been permitted to interact with them...
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Belmarniss remembers learning about the Far Portal from her studies in the Academy. The Station nearby was very much like Nightarch back on Apostae. Scientists poking and probing at a gate, trying to figure out how to open it without knowing what's on the other side...this Far Portal was something on a much grander scale, though.
"It's impressive...and perhaps more than a little ominous. Captain Conners, you're local, correct? Have the people on that station ever made any breakthroughs studying the Far Portal in your lifetime?"
When Marinol gets the AC running, she breathes a sigh of relief.
"That's MUCH better. Thank you, Engineer Welkin. Your skill at getting this thing to give just a little bit more is essential in space-flight, and worthy of respect."
"Well, Knight-Lieutenant Rycast, about a dozen years back the Cathedral funded an expedition into the Far Portal. Even with the extra shielding, it came back smoking in under 2 hours," replies Flint. "The only beings that seem to be able to navigate the other side of that portal are the efreeti, and they aren't talking."
Looking wistfully at the monitor, Flint muses, ”every time I see that huge ring in the the view screen, I can’t shake the feeling that something is about to come bursting through in a ball of flame.”
Sammad looks up to Belmarniss from his seat before replying. "The Al-Fayir tell tales about them...cautionary tales. The only reason the two sides aren't in a war is because the Portal-dwellers sell mere baubles, not weapons."
Mari grins at Belmarniss and sketches a two-finger salute.
"Never miss a chance to show off, ma'am," she says, punctuating the sentence with a wink before turning to Sammad.
"What kind of things do they sell? Must be pretty fancy if even their ships get cooked on the way through."
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As you muse over the nature of the Far Portal and the travelers that sometimes pass through it, the Radiant Voyager's own path brings it closer and closer to that ring. Flint is the first to notice an unusual reading on the scanners. A solar prominence whipping up from the surface of the sun. Not a completely uncommon sight to be fair... but the weather forecast hadn't warned that there'd be one. He switches the viewscreen to the prominence as Marisol takes over the scans to make sure the ship is at a safe range away from the event.
Its Sammad who first notices the glowing oblong shape emerging from prominence. A tiny rough ovoid, with two frontal protrusions. As you all watch, the shape goes from white hot to gold and black... its...
A starship
Flint can see at a glance that this ship is nothing like the sunskimmers he's piloted before. Where those tiny craft can endure a short duration in the sun's corona and can't go more than a mile or two from the protective shell of one of the Burning Archipelago's bubble fields, this starship flew with ease directly out of the sun. And from initial appearances, it has none of the ablative plating that protects other ships that try to endure the inhospitable inferno.
Before you can do much more than stare in awe of the rapidly cooling starship, you're struck by another strange sight. The Far Portal begins to churn. Its blue-white surface swirls and ripples. And with a burst of light and energy it disgorges a massive monstrous creature!
You see a massive whale-like creature the size of a full size battlecruiser, gleaming with heat as eddies of fire and lava pull free from it and dissipate into the void of space. Its head, fins and tail are bedecked in a frightening array of technological equipment. It whips its tail free from the portal and swims forward, craning its massive head as if seeking something. And... it finds it. The inferno whale points itself directly toward the mystery starship and begins accelerating towards it!
"Bloody hell!" Marisol exclaims as the inferno whale bursts out of the Far Portal. Faced with two impossible events in quick succession, Mari falls back on her training and begins pulling together every bit of telemetry she can grab about the mystery ship and this new space monster. Biting her lip in consternation, she turns to Flint.
"Cap, looks like the big beastie wants that ship, not us. We can probably sneak by while it's distracted, but I'm not sure if they'll be able to outrun it."
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exclaims Flint in a language that sounds like crackling flame.
"Battlestations," calls out Captain Flint, changing instantaneously from laconic to all-business and barking orders.
"Sensors, find out everything you can about the ship and the...beast. Make sure you are recording this."
"Helm, shields up and fly, uh, casual. Keep us in sensor range."
"Sammad, do you have anything for us on that ship or the beast?"
Flint tries to think if he has even heard legends of either one of these things...Wow!
"Captain...I second that," Sammad said smoothly in response to Flint's...outburst.
Sammad is stunned at what he's just witnessed on the viewscreen. A starship...and a creature that can transition from the Plane of Fire to the void of space? His mind was on overdrive, trying to recall anything the Al-Fayirs have told him about the Eternal Flame and its denizens.
Ordyt had been peering intently through the viewscreen at the faint ring of the Far Portal, listening intently to the others' discussion of its history. When the portal flares to life the oread turns the check the others' response, in case this was normal.
"Oh. Not normal, then." Long strides carry him to the gunnery station, where Ordyt quickly buckles himself in and powers up the ship's coilgun. "Ready to engage on your order, Captain! ...Unless these are the efreeti merchants and that would be inadvisable."
”Stand by, guns and missiles, we need more information first,” answers the Captain.
”Ambassador Sammad, you are welcome to contact the Sunship if you can raise them,” he adds.
At Flint's outburst, Belmarniss leaps to the pilot seat and takes the helm, much to the chagrin of whoever had been piloting thus far...
"Keep our distance, but don't look like we're trying to keep our distance? We should intervene!"
Both Flint and Sammad wrack their brains for anything useful on either the ship or the inferno whale. But both of them find themselves coming up empty. A ship like this flying out of the sun is absolutely unheard of. Even the ships from the plane of fire, ships almost impervious to the predations of flame, would have difficulty flying through the overwhelming blaze of the interior of the sun. The whale on the other hand is almost as much of an enigma. Such enormous stellar creatures are rare to begin with, but this one sports a plethora of technological augmentations. Ones that the whale definitely didn't craft for itself.
The stories tell of these creatures spewing vast gouts of flame that reduce starships to slag in a single breath, and of their particular taste for dwarven mining bases.
As you watch, the Inferno Whale raises its head and its various augmentations glow with heat. It opens its mouth and a hundred miles-long jet of flame bridges the distance between the beast and its quarry. The fiery breath engulfs the craft, but as the flames fade, the craft is entirely undamaged. The whale redoubles its efforts to catch up.
For its part, the fleeing craft flies unsteadily and without evading. Either its engines are malfunctioning or it has an exceptionally poor pilot.
"Captain, I don't think that ship is gonna make it. Looks like the whale is somebody's pet. Do we get involved?"
Say yes, Captain. I'd hate to be insubordinate.
"Yes, I could try to do that," Sammad replied, moving to the comms station.
"Sensors, what do you have for us?" asks Captain Flint, a bit more forcefully, "We need to know what we are up against!"
Seeming to come to a decision, Captain Flint answers, "Agreed, Knight-Lieutenant, whomever is on that ship is in trouble. Bring us up to 12 clicks astern on the whale."
"Any response from the sunship, Sammad?" he asks.
Speaking quickly, Captain Flint concludes, "I need someone on missile control! Ordyt, we are going to close in behind it, sting it on its a$$ with simultaneous missiles and hot metal, then run like hell!"
Marisol's hands and eyes danced across her station, the exocortex processing the incoming data faster than even her exceptional biological brain could interpret.
"That's a godsdamned Inferno Whale! Never heard of one done up with cybernetics like this one, though. Now let's see what I can learn about its quarry..."
"Inferno Whale, an ominous name. Are they sentient? And can our ship resist a blast of fire like that?"
Ordyt hesitates on the controls of the coilgun's targeting matrix, torn between wanting to help the beleaguered ship and not wanting to harm a creature indigenous to the Burning Mother. "Those tech enhancements on it, are they giving off any kind of identifying signals?"
Belmarniss takes control and begins angling the Radiant Fire to an intercept course with the whale. As she does so, the whale unleashes another blast of fire in frustration, once more immolating the fleeing ship to no effect. Flint watches the viewscreen intently. To his eye, the fleeing mystery ship really *is* in distress. Their engines are burning hard and even so, the whale is gaining on them.
Sammad attempts to open comms with the fleeing ship. He runs the computer through all standard hailing frequencies and tries to run through the open comms bands for ship chatter. The fleeing ship is not only silent - but the Radiant Fire's instrumentation shows its sending nothing at all on any Pact Worlds standard channel - the ship is running silent.
Marisol begins scanning both the whale and the fleeing ship, doing her best to process all the information the ship's computers are providing her. While she gathers an assortment of combat relevant data , two facts stand out to her. First, the fleeing ship is definitely not of Pact Worlds origin. Her displays are showing an awful lot of blanks: 'Unknown Armament type', 'Unknown Propulsion - Class G estimated', 'Unknown shield class' and more. But she can tell that the ship is already damaged and its life support and engines malfunctioning.
The whale is similarly somewhat of an enigma as to its exact specs - but the energy readings coming from it are immense. This is no Besmaran whelp. If those energy readings can be extrapolated, it vastly outclasses the Radiant Fire.
As you zoom towards the scene, Sammad's attempts are interrupted by a sudden incoming commlink. Not from the fleeing ship, but from Far Portal Station. He responds to the hail. The image of a panicked female korasha lashunta with a mop of dark blue hair appears on the comms screen.
"This is Dr. Taeress Suloro of Far Watch Station. Radiant Fire, please, you have to help that ship! Its of immense scientific value - the first ever deep-sun traveler! And that beast is about to destroy it!" She gasps for breath. "We have a Sarenite destroyer, Main-sequence class, en route - but it's going to take them another 10 minutes. Please, do whatever you can to keep it distracted until they arrive!"
Sammad turns to the screen, a wry grin beginning to form on his features.
"Well isn't it your lucky cycle, Doctor, for we were already planning to do that," as he casts a glance to Belmarniss in the pilot's seat, before looking back to the Doctor. "Noble souls that we are," he said dryly.
He turns to Flint next, "Captain, how can I assist? Diplomacy and negotiation won't do us any good, I suspect."
"Oh no, I think a hit from that beauty would turn us into a rapidly expanding ball of plasma!" replies Mari, quite cheerily.
"Cap, based on what I'm reading here, that ship doesn't have much left. Life support and engines are compromised, and the whale is gaining on them. Still processing but if we're going to intervene, best bet is to stay astern and keep poking at it, draw its attention off our new friends long enough for the big guns to get here."
”Sammad, thanks for trying. Prepare the forward missile battery,” Captain Flint says.
”Mari, I’m going to need you at engineering for this—we are going to need you to push propulsion to get us there, boost weapons so we have a chance of hurting it, then boost propulsion again to get us out of range of that fiery death ray before it can turn around,” he instructs.
”Knight Lieutenant, make best speed towards the enemy, bringing us up directly astern to a minimum distance of 12 clicks, then be ready to turn and burn!”
”Ordyt, Sammad, this enemy is way out of our weight class, but it is focused on its prey. We are going to gamble that it won’t notice us until we sting it, so we will use Attack Pattern Zeta.”
Realizing that our diplomat may not know what he is talking about, Flint explains, ”Start firing missiles as soon as you can get a target lock at long range. We will fly as fast as we can towards the enemy and continue firing missiles until we are at short range. Simultaneous with the first missiles impacting, Ordyt will open fire with the coilgun and we will turn tail and run, continuing to fire the coilgun as multiple missiles hit the enemy.”
Flint remembers in the training simulations that he was able to hit with 4 missiles at once using this method, but it was with a fast ship, slow missiles, and an oblivious target...
”Let’s go be heroes,” he finishes.
Sammad gives a curt nod to Flint, then speaks. "As ordered, Captain. I'll do my best, as usual." He then turns and makes his way to the other gunnery station to prepare the missile launchers.
"You got it! Mari says, flying out of her chair and leaving it spinning wildly behind her. Dropping into the engineering station, she quickly swipes through the menus until she accesses the power distribution systems. She dismisses the warning pop-up before it's even had time to fully render and sends a chunk of the reserve power directly to the ship's engines.
To facilitate that, I'll be rolling the piloting checks for 'initiative' each round for both parties. Once those are done, each player should declare their crew action (order doesn't matter: helm, engineering and gunnery phases can be done simultaneously) and I'll try to decode them in a way that makes sense. After 24 hours are up, I'll resolve the actions that both sides have taken + provide 'initiative' piloting rolls for the next round. As in normal combat, I'll skip anyone who doesn't post within 24 hours of the round starting, unless they've specifically given me botting instructions (see my GM alias profile page for more info on that).
When you move the Loreseeker across the map, please copy the GREEN arrows provided on the map to show the path of the starship's movement for that round.
Dr. Taeress Suloro draws in breath, relief clear on her face the moment Sammad agrees to run interference. She gives the ifrit a tight smile "We're counting on you. Good luck. And don't die. That'd weigh heavily on my conscience."
You speed into action, the Radiant Fire straining to reach the scene in time to make a difference. By the time you reach the vicinity, the Inferno Whale has already almost caught up to its quarry! Its maw opens wide... getting ready to bite down on the fleeing ship. You'll need to act fast to distract it.
Round 1
The Radiant Fire moves second. I've moved the inferno whale. The inferno whale swoops in towards the fleeing starship, its burning maw spread wide.
Ship Status:
Radiant Fire - 55/55 HP - 15/15/15/15 Shields
Fleeing Ship - ?/? HP
Inferno Whale - ?/? HP - ? Shields